The film also has some admirable commentary on the whole global warming thing that’s going on in the real world. I sense that there will be a fair few fictional films which will tackle the subject, either blatantly or subtly, in the upcoming years.
I expect Shyamalan sat around for weeks on end trying to come up with the idea for this movie, thinking of a way he could come back effectively after his previous two duds. And I also expect that when he came up with the very first idea of this he thought he had an automatic winner on his hands, no matter how he wrote the script, who starred in it and how it all came together. I think his problem is he’s a much better director than he is a screenwriter, it seems liked he didn’t know where to go with the decent enough idea he initially had and he definitely should have got someone else to either co-write or write the screenplay all by themselves. Shyamalan has always been an idea-dependent filmmaker and it just so happens that it’s taken a few years for that to truly show.
Everyone is no doubt wondering whether or not Shyamalan will have a twist at the end as per usual and whether or not it will be a shocking one. Well I think the real twist of The Happening is the very fact that there isn’t really one. There is a kind of “leave you hanging” mentality going on but there’s no outright shock factor just before the closing credits roll. I was kind of expecting that he might pull this trick (of not having a twist) and I expected to admire that. But as it turns out it didn’t really work in his favour.
I think the word which accurately sums up my feelings about The Happening is "underwhelming." I expected a whole lot more from it than it ultimately delivered, the trailers in particular looked great. Most of the cast, in particular Mark Wahlberg, look like they’d rather be in another movie and it just overall fails to work in the way it should. Here’s hoping Shyamalan comes up with something better next time around.
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